A blog for information on good indian movies with focus on parallel cinema.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Rihaee-1988(Liberation)

WOW.what a movie. This is the boldest indian movie that i have ever seen.This movie is well constructed and makes a clear point about the society's attitude towards men and women. This movie might not go down well with lot of peoples as it breaks some important rules of the society.This movie is not for everyone and definitely not for the conservatives.

The movie elaborates on one issue that was mentioned in sai paranjpaye's disha. The needs of women left behind by the men who go to work in cities. The story is set in a remote village in gujarat.Men folk here, like many other villages in india got to the cities to work ,leaving behind there families. Here that syndrome is at the extreme, pretty much no man is there in the village. Aruna explore the problems that arise out of this migration and how the society in general is different when it comes to men and women.

---------------story------Mansukh (Nasrudden shah) after working for a long time in dubai, returns to his native village. This is the village where all the men have gone to work in the cities. The lonely women of the village are all excited with the arrival of mansukh and many are after him.Especially sukhi(Neena gupta) and remma lagoo.Taku (Hema malini) wife of amarji(vinodh khanna) is a women with an attitude. She is an independent and strong women who is different from the group. Mansukh becomes interested in her and he goes after her. After his persistent attempts he succeeds they start having a relationship.

After a while mansukh leaves the village.The women sukhi and Taku later find out that they are both pregnant.How they deal with that pregnancy is the movie.-----------------------

This is a staggering movie that shakes some of the fundamental rules of a hindu society.It talks about equal opportunity to females on all aspects.Unlike many directors who advocate for equal opportunity without much alteration of the current social setup, aruna talks about giving those oppurtunity, even if it means changing the basic rules of the current social setup.

The movie starts almost like a soft porn. I was wondering how a women director like aruna raje has taken a movie like this, the movie turned around and became a strong women's liberation voice.

The movie starts with the introduction of the village characters through a postman(harish patel).Later,the movie targeting the men folks on there attitude towards women, hooks them with a common man's dream story. A man in a village filled with longing women. Then it slowly turns and constructs through various threads to tell how women is differentiated in the eyes of the society ,what a baby means to a women and what is real manliness.

The movie has many small threads and uses many characters. But none of the characters are unimportant, every small character deals with different issues to tell the plight of the women.Aruna's screenplay should be commended for the way it integrates all the issues with takku's problem as the central point.

Jhumkhu(Ila arun) for example looses her son in a fire accident and is forced to do the funeral without her husband, as he is not able to come to the village. she goes through that trauma all alone. She almost becomes insane on that loss, this character is later used to convey the message that whether it is an accident or an abortion, the trauma of loosing a child for a woman is the same.Like Jhumku there is a story behind every women character, and they have one problem or the other because of the fact that they are woman.

The movie clearly puts the double standard followed for men and women through various village characters.Mansukh's father in the panchayat blames the women of the village to be punished, without saying anything about his son who was responsible for everything. The movie also points out the hypocrisy of the society which says it is ok to hide the truth rather than reveal it openly.

Credits:The movie has good cast. Mohan Agashe another great actor who is in all good movies, but never gets any significant role has got a cameo in this movie. He comes as the impulsive roopji.vinod khanna is ok and hema malini falters at lot of places.

Again aruna’s hand is everywhere in the movie.story, screenplay, costumes, editing, direction and production by Aruna Raje

Music:Music director for the movie is sharang dev, son of Classical maestro Pandit Jasraj’s1)Aaye raath pe savarThis is probably the decent song in the movie.The song is set in the back drop of a fair and gujarathi folk dance.2)There mere bairan3)Delhi mei dil naa laage

Trivia:*)Aruna Raje supposedly made Rihaee, inspired by a real story of a woman who had the courage to refuse abortion of a child that did not belong to her husband.

*)I read somewhere that Aruna raje was planning to do a sequel of Rihaee, not sure what happened to that.

*)The movie opened with dedication to smitha patil.Rihaee was released in 1988.

Rihaee Vs Matrubhoomi...how different the contexts become, how contradictory the ideas and solutions become with both the genders...how empowering a man feels and how restless and helpless a woman becomes...

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